‘In 2006, I fled from Iran to Syria. After I arrived, I was interviewed by the UNHCR and by Australian Immigration, and accepted as a genuine refugee, as were others like me, who were from the persecuted Arab Ahwaz minority group. But after they approved us, we heard nothing from the Australian embassy for at least a year. At that time, John Howard was in power and unfortunately, he wasn’t really sympathizing with the refugees. This wasn’t a good situation for us because we couldn’t legally work in Syria, and we didn’t have any money. We survived by selling clothes in the streets and because we spoke Arabic, we could sometimes work as interpreters for Iranian tourists, but it wasn’t an easy existence.’